Greenpeace gone too far with GM Golden Rice scandal

“Human guinea pigs”, “gambling with health” and “shadowy research project”—the terms came thick and fast in Greenpeace’s revelation about Golden Rice earlier this year.

Referring to something it “discovered” four years previously, the environmental pressure group issued a press release at the end of August revealing that a team of scientists from the United States had “fed a group of 24 children aged between six and eight years of age a potentially dangerous product” in Hunan Province, China. It encouraged readers to be “pretty outraged”.

Greenpeace’s allegations were levelled against researchers from Tufts University in Boston, who had been working on a long-term and well-documented study on rice that could produce beta-carotene, which when eaten is converted into vitamin A.

The new rice variety was created by splicing two genes into white rice, and scientists have since found a way to include iron in newer varieties. Together it adds up to a pretty useful package when you consider that a full one-half of the world’s population is vitamin deficient, according to the United Nations.

Work on Golden Rice actually began nearly a decade before the Hunan research took place. A team of European scientists had, in 1999, used open-source technology to develop the strain into what would become the first major genetically enhanced food in a new generation of bio-engineered produce that could be eaten directly by the consumer.

It might be the case that the Hunan researchers cut some corners, as Greenpeace alleges, and a Tufts ethics committee is currently looking into that. But to say that Golden Rice was “potentially dangerous” is tantamount to over-egging the flan with every yolk in China.

The trial was meant to find out if the addition of a small amount of Golden Rice into the food of young Chinese children would deliver enough added nutrients to have a significant impact on their development. According to an article in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition—the report on which Greenpeace based its “discovery”—the results of the research were extremely positive.

China, as the world’s largest rice producer, had hitherto been a proponent of genetically modified research and supports agricultural biotechnology. Indeed, authorities in the country have approved Bt rice, a locally developed strain of engineered rice, although it is not yet in production.

But the country has reacted heavy-handedly since Greenpeace’s “findings”, not least due to the ensuing public outcry. Rumours shot across the Internet, through the Chinese social media site Weibo, claiming that the rice would make the children impotent in later life, among other scare stories. Naturally, those villagers whose children were involved in the trial were outraged, as one would expect them to be as they lacked the benefit of informed judgement.

The Chinese media, meanwhile, sensing an opportunity to hurl dirt at the United States, continued to fan the flames with its own hysterical outrage, claiming that the research was part of a scurrilous conspiracy between the American government and local scientists to carry out a secretive experiment on its country’s unwitting children.

The three Chinese scientists implicated by Greenpeace, as FoodNavigator-Asia reported last week, paid for their involvement by forfeiting their jobs. However, both the American and Chinese researchers continue to assert that all studies were transparent, and claim they informed all parents involved that their children would be eating nutritionally enhanced rice.

And here is the bone of contention. While the parents do not deny the scientists’ assertions, their outrage stems from the terminology: that the “nutritionally enhanced” rice was never referred to as “genetically modified”.

As a result, local government officials paid compensation—substantial by local standards—to the parents. All the while, research that is meant to help the 100m children with vitamin A deficiency across the globe is now under a shadow in the world’s most populous nation.

Greenpeace has made no bones about its opposition to modification, even as a means to secure food supplies and enhance the meagre produce available to the poorest and most deprived. Instead, it champions vitamin tablets and organic farming—worthy indeed, but not much use for those living hand to mouth.

It all goes to show how much emotive power the letters G and M have, even to those who cannot define what they mean when put together. Rather than join in with the lynch mob, as it has done, the Chinese government and others like it should instead be acting to inform those in need of the true benefits of the technology it has already approved.

Greenpeace might have said: “We're... seeing a huge amount of time, energy and talent being wasted on what is essentially yet another example of big business hustling in of one the world's most sacred things: our food supply.” But the reality is that it is guilty of wasting the same resources on these unnecessary PR coups.

Editor's note: What is your opinion on this controversy? Has Greenpeace overplayed its card or is GM rice a danger, in spite of its known benefits to the world's poor? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

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10 comments(Comments are now closed)

Who Wrote this

this is one of the most poorly edited articles.
What is Hunan?
No gmo crop has been tested or proven to be safe. it contaminates the biosphere and eliminates plant diversity.

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Posted by steve18 December 2012 | 09h552012-12-18T09:55:56Z

Article misses the point

This GM rice has not gone through basic toxicity testing on animals, so it is indeed potentially dangerous to feed it to children. Ethically it is not acceptable to feed the GM rice to children without informing the parents that the rice is GM. These are clearcut breaches of scientific and ethical standards that have been denounced publicly by scientists. So it's disingenuous to suggest that Greenpeace is over-reacting.

To say that the alternative solutions of vitamin A tablets and organic growing are "not much use" for poor people betrays an utter lack of research. According to the World Health Organisation, giving out vitamin A supplements, fortifying existing foods, and teaching people to grow green leafy veg in kitchen gardens are better ways to fight vitamin A deficiency than Golden Rice. These programs are cheap, simple, available now, and only lack the very modest funding to roll out more widely. In contrast all GM crops are expensive to develop and grow.

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Posted by Claire Robinson15 December 2012 | 22h342012-12-15T22:34:29Z

credible?

i posted a comment yesterday but was silenced simply because i posted some hard quesions to the author of this piece of news:
did the athour grill the three officials/reseachers as the China Central TV did (twice) before jumping to the judgements/conclusions? if so, did the author compare what he found from them to the methodology used in the 'scientific paper' 'based on the trials'? If so, the author would have found gross misconduct and lies regarding this study, thus the content of this piece would be different if the author is working for true journalism!

Editor's response to HR Gisel

FoodNavigator-Asia is a news service for the food, nutrition and supplement industry and operates independently of all industry lobbies.

As editor, I have no loyalty or afiliation to any pro- or anti-GM groups and so have nothing to disclose. This piece is based purely on scientific and social reasoning and was conceived to provoke debate about the practices of Greenpeace during the Golden Rice debacle.

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Posted by RJ Whitehead15 December 2012 | 05h372012-12-15T05:37:02Z

Sure, Greenpeace thrives on sensationalizing, but...

Pretty much all literature I've seen from Greenpeace abounds with sensationalism and 'outrage' oriented verbiage. It's their schtick. But occasionally there is (ugh, bad pun) a grain of truth in there.

We know that some GM foods can cause allergic reactions or low-grade inflammation in previously healthy individuals. Low-grade inflammatory symptoms can take years to manifest, and they can be aggravated over generations--that takes way more time than just two decades of research.

My second concern is on the business side. As the Western world invents clever GM crops to feed "the world's poor," are we selling them seed that cannot, itself, reproduce? Are we indenturing "them" to "us" to purchase seed every year? Many GM crops in the US cannot reproduce; farmers cannot save their own seed but must purchase new seed every year. If we do that to third world populations, we are not raising them up at all; we're creating a global underclass of indentured servants. I would love to see Food Navigator explore that question regarding Golden Rice. I haven't seen any reporting on that particular nuance.

Regardless, for most involved parties, this is hardly a mindful conspiracy of the haves against the have-nots. Most of the researchers and even corporate backers likely think they're being heroic. No, not a conspiracy. But it is laziness and a lust for fast solutions. It's easiest to make a problem-solving product available fast, without fully researching its long-term effects on health and economics.

Please don't let the bad style of a spastic watchdog become your excuse for neglecting to wrestle with some potentially very valuable, honest, journalistic questions.

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Posted by Anika Hanisch14 December 2012 | 20h012012-12-14T20:01:14Z

Golden Rice

It is interesting how the FDA goes after arsenic in rice, yet not one case in all the world is shown that even one person was affected by arsenic in rice. Yet GM food gets a pass with no long term testing? If it so great, I would think they would have come up with longer tests and they would love to have it on food labels. Why are the GM food people not proud of it? And many of the advertised benefits of GM crops is not proving false long term with super weeds and super bugs developing. For all we know, Golden Rice could be the next FDA approved Vioxx.

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Posted by Butch Johnson14 December 2012 | 14h442012-12-14T14:44:45Z

this piece sounds like a PR coup for argibiotech industry!

Before making judgements/conclusions like this, please get all the truth about how this study was carried out. Did the author of this piece grill the three officials/researchers face to face like China Central TV? If so, did the author compare the findings with the methodology of the 'scientific paper'? If so, the author should have found out the gross misconduct and lies from researchers involved in this research!

Vitamin A Rice

What a great pity that the over-zealous GM "mafia" see fit to condemn the millions of children in Asia to blindness, without a shred of evidence that the genetic modification actually DOES harm ??? Unfortunately we do live in a world where a vocal minority can ensure that so many fellow men will live in misery, just so that the vocal few can hog the limelight.

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Posted by Garry Wainscott14 December 2012 | 08h042012-12-14T08:04:16Z

not credible

Once again the essential information of the Author's conflicting interests and biotech connections is missing, therefore the article is not credible at all.

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Posted by H R Gisel14 December 2012 | 07h372012-12-14T07:37:28Z

Greenpeace gone too far?

Why were the parents not told the rice was genetically modified? Lack of transparency does make one wonder what is being hidden. Are there really benefits of GM foods to the world's poor? what exactly are these benefits? We still do not know what problems or dangers may yet arise